How I prepare and emergency preparedness go-bag for Hurricane Joaquin:

1) One case of screw-top wine (the varietals are negotiable).

2) Several school-lunch-sized brown paper bags for hysterically breathing into in the event of hyperventilating out of fear that the unkept tree branches of the silver maple (a “trash tree” as told to me by an arborist) are going to fall on my kitchen roof and kill us all as I am making hot chocolate with the very last splashes of milk in all the world.

3) Waterproof mascara (no duh.)

4) Foul weather gear because I like saying it. I don’t really have any. I do have several thick cotton hoodies with my kids’ school’s mascot on them that would probably get heavy with rain and drown me.

5) Can-opener. Because I got some fancy smoked baby clams at Wegman’s that I’ve been waiting for the right moment to open and if not now when? If we lose power and the world ends maybe the smelly, oily, delicious things could be traded as valuable currency? And I would be worshiped as a god.